Onemanda Preisinger feels anxious about her daughter’s impending 13th birthday party. It’s not due to the typical causes associated with a house full of clamorous preteen kids, but since it’s the first time she will reveal her new face to acquaintances and extended family. “Clearly I’m going to tell everyone as they come in, ‘For your information, this is not how I appear,’” states the 30-year-old real estate agent from Southern Florida.
How she looks is, admittedly, a somewhat surprising – her face swollen and unnaturally tightened, as though held together by heavy-duty tape. Her new – and she’s keen to stress, temporary – appearance is the result of half a dozen cosmetic procedures, such as an endoscopic mid-facelift, conducted by a surgeon in Turkey’s Istanbul, the previous month. “My spouse teared up when he saw me for the first time because I wasn’t able to even unseal my eyes. That indicates puffy I was,” she tells me via video call from her house. “I had to tell him: ‘Honey, I’m fine, I’m not hurting. I just appear as if someone attacked me.’”
Growing Trend of Early Facelifts
According to plastic surgeons, Preisinger is one of a growing number of individuals electing to undergo a rhytidectomy in their twenties and thirties – significantly before a decade before typical surgeons’ typical patient age range of forty to sixty. (Although most surgeons are keen to emphasise the industry edict of: “We address genetics, not age.”) “I have 28-year-olds requesting facelifts,” says based in London aesthetic plastic surgeon Georgios Orfaniotis, a former NHS consultant who specialises in the head and neck. “It’s a very significant surgery, and I’m a bit concerned when I see people choosing it as a lifestyle choice.”
Explaining the Facelift Procedure
A rhytidectomy, also known as a rhytidectomy, elevates the tissues in the face that begin to droop as we grow older. “Our faces are structured a bit like layers of an onion,” says based in Kent face specialist Marc Pacifico. “Skin and fat on the top, then a layer of connective tissue known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system. Consider the facial framework as the structural foundation of the face. And that’s what causes aging; that is what loosens and sags and drags the skin down with it.”
You risk performing surgery on people that have underlying problems. It’s not a practice for an conscientious surgeon to pursue
Previously reserved of moneyed older people, overuse of injectables – when overuse of dermal fillers expands the face and causes laxity in the dermis – alongside the common adoption of slimming medications, low-cost medical tourism, and the development of new, celebrity-endorsed surgical techniques are attracting a different type of patient towards this major operation. Reports indicate an eight percent rise in facial lifts over the last year in the United Kingdom; while a survey revealed that the percentage of younger facelift patients is increasing, with 32% of facelifts now conducted for patients aged 35-55.
“Patients are now requesting to appear as the optimal form of themselves and naturally the methods are evolving,” says Orfaniotis. Currently, the trending procedure is the comprehensive facial lift, a technique evangelised by figures including reality TV star Kris Jenner, to fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Deep Plane Technique
Where a conventional facelift involves lifting the SMAS, the deep plane facelift loosens the facial ligaments beneath it, enabling surgeons to reshape the face by repositioning the underlying layers, and avoiding the taut, pulled look sometimes wrought by older methods. “We avoid placing stress on the dermis because we’re targeting deeper, to the deeper tissue,” explains prestigious London plastic surgeon Rajiv Grover, who focuses on the advanced method. “It is the deeper tissue that is repositioned. The skin comes with it as a passenger.” Lifting the entire soft tissue layer as a single unit results in a authentic-appearing and more durable outcome. It additionally implies that the surgery is not just being used for the express purpose of anti-ageing – or rejuvenation, as the aesthetics industry describes it – but for “enhancement” and contouring, too. “We receive numerous requests from patients aged 28 to 35 for this reason,” notes Grover.
Individual Experience
Preisinger had never planned on undergoing a facial lift – at least not at the age of 30. But long-term using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers in an attempt at “symmetry correction” meant that by the time she entered her late twenties, she was “botched”. “I didn’t do this because I desired to appear young,” she clarifies. “I did it because the filler ruined my face. I regret ever done it. If I didn’t have the injectable, I don’t believe I would be where I’m at currently.”
If injectable substances completely disappear has historically been a point of contention in the cosmetic field. “Research have indicated that they seldom completely dissolve,” says Grover, “but they move and can block lymphatic channels. A contributing factor to what we term ‘pillow face’ is also the reality that in a sense, the face gets somewhat fluid-filled because its capacity to remove bodily fluid has been reduced.” Though research into the area is preliminary, cautionary statements on dermal fillers’ possible effects on the body’s drainage have been released, and additional studies announced. One highly regarded face specialist, commenting on the condition of anonymity, mentioned he would never use injectables in a patient because of the dangers they present. “Many doctors avoid discussing this, because the manufacturers who produce injectables can be pretty aggressive.” He’s heard stories, he says, of plastic surgeons being landed with legal actions after raising their concerns.
Choice and Surgery
For Preisinger, after beginning injecting filler, she felt as if she needed to continue replenishing it – especially as it started to migrate to different areas of her face. She was only twenty-eight when a local plastic surgeon in the state proposed that a face and neck lift could be what she needed to exit the cycle of treatments. Two years later, she found herself selecting from a selection of recommended hotels in the city, texted to her by the patient coordinator at her doctor’s clinic.
Initially, Preisinger had scheduled an eyelid surgery – better known as blepharoplasty – but her doctor recommended that a facelift was the correct option for the laxity she was experiencing in her face. She booked a forehead lift, a cheek lift and a neck lift. The day before her surgery, 24 hours post she’d arrived alone in the country, she opted to include a mouth enhancement. “Then he stated, ‘We will lift the under-eye bags.’ He added, ‘I think if we extract some buccal fat, it will sculpt your face.’ So I ended up including additional surgeries,” she recalls. She spent $22,000 (£16,500) for the half-day operation, including a three-day|
